


absence makes the heart grow fonder

by Zannolin



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: (blows a final kiss to spud) what is this day 7 of making you cry ily im sorry, (blows a kiss to wolfy) remember when you made me so fkn sad this is bc of that, (blows a kiss to zinnia) i am so sorry, Angst, Doomsday War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mildly?, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, bedrock boys, is the title a los campesinos! reference? perhaps, technoblade is so so wrong and writing that from his pov was wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zannolin/pseuds/Zannolin
Summary: New L’manberg is gone, Techno has won again, and yet all he feels is emptiness.In the deepest corner of his enderchest, the bedrock gathers dust.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 187





	absence makes the heart grow fonder

**Author's Note:**

> *wheeze* look I know I just uploaded, I know this is my fourth fic in seven days, but I hit some kinda stride and finished this fic I plotted back in january when wolfy made me really sad on the tl.
> 
> once again I am....so sorry oh my god. someone hit my off switch on the hurt no comfort. I need to get a new hobby.

(New L’manberg is gone, leaving nothing but a new crater in the ground, deeper and wider than ever before. It’s a scar upon the very earth, all of Techno’s grief and rage and betrayal incarnate.

Technoblade is tired.)

* * *

This is not the first time Techno has dragged himself home from L’manberg and the Greater SMP, exhausted and bereft. If the way life goes on this server is any indication to go off of, it won’t be the last, either.

Last time, he was bleeding and aching from being crushed, ripped apart, and sewn back together with old magic. This time, there is no bloodied pickaxe in his hand; rather, there is a terrible emptiness at his side, a space where he has so quickly grown accustomed to a loud, bright presence.

Everything is quieter without Tommy’s brash and bombast.

No matter how much he complained about Tommy’s noise levels, his screaming and swearing and rambling, Techno can’t deny that he misses him.

He doesn’t so much like the quiet anymore.

Techno puts away his gear in silence, hanging his cloak up and letting his hair down, only to stand in the center of the room, hands hovering in front of him, with nothing to do at all.

It had only taken a matter of days for Tommy to worm his way back into Techno’s life and routines, to the point where he doesn’t know what to do now. He feels almost _lost_ without him.

He crosses to his worktable, tries to find something to busy his hands with, but all he finds are more reminders of Tommy.

Leftover materials from making the scute helmet. Scraps of netherite they didn’t use in Tommy’s armor. Random to-do lists that Tommy had stuck everywhere, filled with ridiculous items like _get lots of hot women_ or _make Technoblade smile (he is a sad bitch)._

Rolls of paper covered with rough sketches for an addition to the house. An extra room for Tommy, so he wouldn’t have to sleep in the stupidly cold raccoon-hole of a basement he had carved out.

A room that’s pointless now, because Tommy is gone.

_I would have fought them all for you, Tommy._

Techno shuts his eyes and braces himself on the worktable, hair falling over his face as he sighs sharply and tries to box away his regret.

He doesn’t want to remember the look of complete and utter betrayal and _hurt_ on Tommy’s face when he had sided with Dream. It’s just a means to an end, like it always is. Just because he’s working with Dream doesn’t mean he’s _on Dream’s side,_ can’t Tommy see that? He’d have thought it would be obvious.

(Techno ignores the part of his mind that whispers _are you really any better than you say they are? Look at you, furious at only being used as a weapon, and yet here you stand doing the same thing._ )

Once again, Tommy’s shattered expression flashes in Techno’s mind, and he shakes it away.

“No,” he says fiercely to the empty room.

He has more important things to do than miss the very child who betrayed him — _twice._

Resolutely, Techno sweeps the papers off the table and tosses them into a chest, hoping he won’t have to look at them for a good long time.

He has the death of a nation to plan.

* * *

(On a bench far away, Tommy sits in the freezing night air wearing nothing but his old, patched shirt and pants. He can’t bring himself to wear the cape Techno gave him, not after their falling out in the ruins of the Community House, not after Techno grinned at Dream like he was an _old friend,_ and he can’t quite stomach donning Wilbur’s old coat again just yet.

He sits on the bench, an enchanted green helmet at his side, jukebox silent in the grass at his feet, and he stares at the moon.

Tommy wonders if Techno’s looking at the moon now, wherever he is. Probably back at his arctic base, or maybe in that terrible room stocked with rows upon rows of Wither skulls. The end of a symphony outlined in bone and soul-sand and fireworks.

In one hand, Tommy grips the friendship emerald from Phil and Techno, holds it so tightly the edges bite into his palm.

He does not cry.

TommyInnit is a big man, and he does not cry.

There must be some other explanation for the droplets of water freezing against his cheeks.

He doesn’t regret what he did. Tommy knows he made the right choice. He _can’t_ be like Wilbur, can’t become everything he’s never wanted to be, and worse. The only real choice was Tubbo, in the end. Besides, Techno only cared about him as a business partner, an alliance of convenience.

He made that _abundantly_ clear when siding with Dream.

Tommy doesn’t regret his choice, but that doesn’t mean he misses Techno any less.)

* * *

They’re up late into the night and early into the next morning, making plans and assembling supplies. It feels like old times, a little, just Techno and Phil against the world, gearing up to win.

The Angel of Death and the Blood God.

Phil had been angry on his behalf when Techno told him what happened at the festival. He hadn’t needed any convincing to fight by Techno’s side, and that, at least, Techno takes comfort in.

If he has nothing else, he’ll always have Phil.

_For Phil, the world._

Techno’s not sure what he’d do without him.

He does not think of what Tommy will say when he learns what side Phil has chosen.

* * *

(Techno opens his enderchest to retrieve his totem, determined to convince Phil to carry it, and that is when he sees the bedrock. That shard of the very world’s foundation, unbreakable and eternal. Something he should never have been able to possess, and yet Tommy had a piece to match.

They had joked about being partners, because of it. _Bedrock boys!_ Tommy had yelled joyfully, and Techno had allowed himself to be caught up in the kid’s enthusiasm.

Their partnership was supposed to be like the bedrock, unbreakable, unchanging, _steady._ Unexpected and against the rules, surely, but _strong._

They had both felt that way.

But Techno had never said a word of that, never given Tommy a reason to believe he cared about him as anything but a temporary alliance, a means to an end, a _weapon,_ just like he himself had been in the rebellion.

Techno clenches the bedrock in his fist. He doesn’t want to think about it.

“Are you all right, mate?” Phil asks, poking his head up from the ladder to the room below, something like understanding in his eyes, and Techno breathes out, unclenches his fist.

The bedrock clatters into the bottom of the chest, and he pulls out the totem instead.

“Everything’s fine, Phil.”

The lie tastes sour on his tongue.)

* * *

The thing about Theseus is that he died, disgraced and exiled, at the hand of the king who sheltered him. Lycomedes cast him from atop a cliff into the ocean, and thus ended the story of Theseus, another hero claimed in history’s great and ugly tragedy.

And the thing about Techno is that no matter what he said to Tommy, no matter what terrible things he screamed in the height of his grief while slamming down the final skull to summon his Withers — he does not want to be Lycomedes.

Technoblade, no matter how betrayed and angry, does not want Tommy to die.

There are cliffs all around them as his and Dream’s combined forces tear open the earth, rend it open like a wound in nature itself, and Techno does not want Tommy to fall.

 _It’s my fault you’ve become Theseus,_ he does not say. _Please don’t stray near the edge._

(If Tommy were to slip, Techno thinks he might jump to catch him.)

* * *

_I don’t want to hear what you have to say,_ says Wilbur, standing in the wreckage, sweater soaked in blue, and part of Techno shivers in agreement.

What is there to say, anymore?

 _Violence is the only universal language,_ he had once said, and his voice is worn down from screaming.

( _How can you look at this and still see yourself as a hero?_

But they’ve never been the heroes, have they? Just more players in history’s great and glorious tragedy, the ugliest song ever written.)

 _I sowed the seeds of peace and yet I’m the one who pays for war!_ Wilbur sobs, form wavering and hissing in the downpour, and Techno looks away as Phil’s expression crumbles.

Some might compare war to a chess game, but Techno knows it’s not.

War is not a game, because no one truly wins a war.

It’s just a matter of who suffers enough that they give up.

* * *

Afterwards, when their few wounds are bandaged, they sit together in front of Techno’s fire and say nothing for a long, long time.

Techno and Phil were the clear victors today, and yet neither of them feels as though they won anything. Swords clashed, homes were torn apart, and words that can never be taken back were spat out, words so bladed they bloodied the mouths of those who spoke them.

“Phil,” Techno says slowly, after some time. “Do you think we made the right choice?”

Phil hums, running a hand over his face. He looks tired. More tired than Techno has ever seen him, over their years of friendship. It’s more than physical exhaustion; it’s a bone-deep weariness that no amount of sleep can ever truly cure.

“Yes,” says Phil, at long last, but it sounds more like _I hope so._

Like _I’m telling myself I was right because I can’t bear to think about being wrong._

Techno nods.

(The reason why he’s asking goes unspoken. Techno is not often one to question his morals, but the devastated look in the eyes of a boy he does not want to consider a brother…it still gives him pause, when nothing else could.

_People are above the government!_

**_I’m a person!_ **

He’s not sure he’ll ever rid his ears of the echo of Tommy’s broken scream, yelling, _so are we!_ right back at him with all the fury he learned from Techno, all the passion Wilbur taught him, all of Phil’s assurance.

Tommy said he was worse than all the people he hated, but really, Techno has to admit he’s all the best parts of the rest of them combined.)

* * *

“Techno,” says Phil, standing over by the window, and Techno looks up from his bowl of soup. “Come look at this.”

Techno grunts, setting the soup on the worktable, and shuffles over to see what Phil is looking at.

Outside, just past the glow of the yard's torches, there is another small spot of light in the gathering night. Through the snow flurries, Techno can just make out a familiar lanky monochrome form, painstakingly erecting the beginnings of a shack.

He knows what Phil’s going to say before the older man even opens his mouth, and he finds he’s oddly resigned to it.

“It’s cold out,” Phil says. “We can let him stay, just for the night—”

Techno sighs. “Go and get him.”

Even though he’s gone now, even though he likely hates Techno, Tommy is somehow still worming his way into Techno’s life and shaking everything up like a child with a snow globe. He's gone _soft._

Moments later, Phil leads a shivering Ranboo in through the front doors and begins rummaging for a spare cloak. Wordlessly, Techno points him to a chest with clothes, and tries not to think about how they were all ones he was altering for Tommy.

“You can sleep here tonight, mate,” Phil says, and bustles off to find some more food for Ranboo.

“Are you…sure?” Ranboo asks Techno quietly, looking hesitant.

“It’s fine, kid,” he replies. “It’s too cold out for you to be sleeping in a shack.”

When they go to bed, Techno does not offer Ranboo the basement room. Ranboo sleeps in Techno’s own bed, and Techno descends to Tommy’s raccoon-hole, sitting up late into the night, gazing down at the shards of Tommy’s prized Prime Log.

* * *

In the end, he pushed too hard. Techno knows this, knows it on a level he can _feel,_ burning in his veins and behind his eyes, even though he will never allow himself to say the words aloud, admit it even to himself. (Knows it like the stars know they are constellations; it is something best observed from the outside.)

He asked too much of Tommy, and he should not have been surprised by what he got in return.

The furcula is a bone that makes the skeletons of birds strong enough for flight. It holds everything together, so much purpose fused into such a small area. Techno knows a great deal about birds and flight thanks to Phil, and this has been a detail that stuck with him over the years. The furcula, more commonly known as the _wishbone._

Tommy was their furcula, their wishbone, the glue that held their not-quite family together and let it _soar,_ pulled them all back together even when they roamed far and wide, even when they fought and screamed and suffered.

Tommy was the wishbone, and standing in the waterlogged ruins of the Community House, asking him to choose between everything he had ever known on this server and the man who helped Wilbur’s downfall, locked in a tug-of-war against Tommy’s best friend, Techno simply pulled too hard.

He pulled too hard and too far and Tommy had _snapped,_ and then _Techno_ had snapped, and now he is left bereft with nothing but a smoking scar in the earth and the splinters of a bond reforged in unlikely circumstance pushing deep into his heart.

They say whoever gets the bigger piece of the wishbone is granted a single wish.

Techno thinks, just maybe, if he could have any wish, it would be to go back and do things differently.

* * *

(The next morning, Techno rummages through his meticulously organized chests to find the plans for the house extension and presents them to Ranboo with a gruff proposition. It’s better than a shack, anyways.

He tries not to think about who the extension was supposed to be for.

In the deepest corner of his enderchest, the bedrock gathers dust.)

* * *

New L’manberg is gone, Techno has won again, and yet all he feels is emptiness.

Standing at the edge of the crater of his own making, breathing in the smoke and dust and despair, Technoblade allows himself a faint smile.

“Is this a fitting enough grave for you?” he murmurs.

 _Did you even once consider how this would make Tommy feel?_ Wilbur’s ghost whispers, voice naught but a reedy memory of what it once was.

“Did _you?_ ”

Beside him, Wilbur is silent.

That’s an answer enough.

(For the second time since joining the server, Techno turns his back on the ruins of a nation, the ghost of a brother and the brokenness of another, and walks away.)

**Author's Note:**

> Find my perpetually angsty ass on [tumblr](https://zannolin.tumblr.com/), [twitter](https://twitter.com/zannolin), and various other sites (same @)! I'm most active on twitter, currently crying over the block men 24/7. 
> 
> You can also find me streaming art, music, writing, and games on twitch, also @zannolin!


End file.
